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On December 1st, the winners of the Cultural Hackathon “Coding Da Vinci Rhein-Main” ("Coding Da Vinci Rhine-Main") were determined in Mainz. With a festive award ceremony in the Landesmuseum Mainz, the first Coding Da Vinci Rhein-Main was completed after five weeks. In total, digital projects were awarded in five categories, making digital treasures from museums, archives, libraries and collections accessible in new ways. A total of 16 teams have successfully participated in the Hackathon with their own project. Many different institutions from all over the Rhine-Main area have joined together to host the Hackathon.

With digital data on medieval monsters, World War I films and historic clothes, the first Coding Da Vinci Rhein-Main lured hackers, creative and cultural enthusiasts from all over Germany to Mainz to launch the five-week Cultural Hackathon in October this year. On Saturday, December 1st, the results were presented by the participants. The result is quite different digital projects, which were developed by all participants during their leisure time.

One of the creative results of Coding Da Vinci Rhein-Main: A computer game using historical war cards of the Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (Hessian State Archives Marburg) (Photo: Klaus Weber, University Library Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz; License: CC BY-SA 4.0 International)

Thanks to state-of-the-art technology, two teams have developed ways in which historical dresses from the collection of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt (Historical Museum Frankfurt) can be virtually tried on. Another team makes it possible for Alexa, the artificial voice assistant from Amazon, to report on the life of the German Emperor Friedrich III. upon request. All 16 projects were judged by a six-member jury of renowned experts from the fields of computer science, design, archiving and creative coding. Prizes were awarded for five categories, which, among other things, weighted creativity and technical implementation. In two categories, the WebApp “Antlitzninja” by Leander was awarded. On a par, the audience’s voting ended in the category “everbodys darling”, in which the web applications “artificApp” by Malgorzata and Piotr Cabaj as well as “Monstermelodies” by Anett Gesierich and Felix Werthschulte won.

The award ceremony was framed by a lecture of the Austrian Archivist Mag. Thomas Just, who provocatively asked, "Are you already hacking or are you still archiving?". In his speech, Just made clear the importance of not only the opening but also the use of digital data from archives, museums, libraries and collections. For State Secretary Prof. Dr. Salvatore Barbaro, this is a central concern of the Digital Strategy Rhineland-Palatinate for the cultural institutions in the country. He emphasized that the Hackathon Coding Da Vinci is a great way to playfully test the potential of open cultural data.

All projects of the Hackathon can be freely used and further developed. An overview of the projects and the data used can be found on the website of Coding Da Vinci der Kultur-Hackathon.

Large crowds at the Landesmuseum Mainz during the presentation of the Coding Da Vinci Rhein-Main projects (Photo: Klaus Weber, University Library of the Johannes Gutenberg University; License: CC BY-SA 4.0 International)

Coding da Vinci - the Cultural Hackathon is a joint project of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany e. V., Forschungs- und Kompetenzzentrum Digitalisierung Berlin (Research and Competence Center Digitalisation Berlin) (digiS) and Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. as well as an official contribution to the European Cultural Heritage Year 2018 in Germany (SHARING HERITAGE).